Sunday, December 15, 2013

Staunton, December 15 – Moscow officials
and commentators keep talking about a deep split between a pro-European Western
Ukraine and a pro-Moscow Eastern Ukraine and suggest that the pursuit of the
former will lead to the splitting apart of Ukraine as a whole, arguments that many
in the West take far too seriously.

In fact, Andrey Illarionov argues,
while there are divisions between Western and Eastern Ukraine, they are far
less significant than Moscow thinks, that a greater share of the population in
both places supports European integration than expanding ties with Moscow, and
that there is no basis for Moscow’s talk about dividing up Ukraine (echo.msk.ru/blog/aillar/1218141-echo/).

Unfortunately, that is not the end
of the story because Moscow has launched a powerful propaganda and pressure campaign
against Ukraine, one that could create some of the conditions that would open
the way for an Abkhaz or South Osetian-type enclavization of the country if
Ukrainians continue to pursue integration with the West.

Ukrainian citizens of both ethnic
Ukrainian and ethnic Russian background have moved in the direction of Europe
over the past 25 years, Illarionov says, and this process has accelerated over
the past three years following the election of Viktor Yanukovich. Indeed, the
Moscow economist says, the Ukrainian president “to give him his due ...played a key role” in changing the minds of
many in Eastern Ukraine.

By the middle of this year, “an absolute
majority” of all Ukrainians supported signing an association agreement with the
European Union and ultimately becoming a member of the EU. Support for these
two goals was higher in the West and Center 67 and 71 percent than in the East
and South 47 and 52 percent, but it was the dominant position across the board.

Thus and despite what official Moscow
regularly claims, “by the middle of 2013 in Ukraine an all-national consensus
relative to the European direction of the political and economic integration of
the country had been formed,” not only for the country as a whole but also for
its various parts, Illarionov says.

Consequently, “there are no objective
bases at this time for the splitting of the Ukraine, even more for a split of a
‘tectonic’ character.”

The Kremlin considers this “unacceptable”
and since the summer has carried out “a broad-scale war of a new type” against
Ukraine, one involving economic pressure and massive amounts of propaganda
intended to prevent Kyiv from doing what the population of Ukraine clearly
wants as far as Europe is concerned.

In this war, Moscow has had two “intermediate”
successes: it has caused Yanukovich to put off signing an association agreement
with the EU, and it has shifted opinion in Ukraine, although far less than
Russian leaders routinely suggest.

If in the first half of 2013, support
among all Ukrainians for integration with Europe increased, since that time, it
has fallen.It fell overall five
percentage points, three in the West and Center and eight in the South and
East. That meant that the plurality of support over opposition to EU
integration fell 12 percentage points for the country as a whole, two
percentage points in the West and Center, but 21 percentage points in the East
and South.

Despite the fact that supporters of the
EU agreement still outnumbered opponents for Ukraine as a whole, the situation changed
in the East and South with opponents now outnumbering supporters 42 percent to
39 percent.Roughly the same pattern shift
occurred regarding eventual Ukrainian membership in the European Union.

Moscow views these “intermediate results”
as “necessary but insufficient.” The number of Ukrainian supporters of European
integration is still greater than the number of opponents. And consequently,
Illarionov says, the Kremlin has moved its “war against Ukraine” into a new
phase, one that talks about splitting that country apart.

The Moscow analyst says that “the main
elements” of this campaign “recall the recent Abkhaz and South Osetian operations
on Georgian television.” They include “the harsh opposition of the Russian
authorities to pro-European and pro-Western aspirations of the majority of the country
being attacked,” “the creation of anti-European and anti-Western places des
armes” there, “the exacerbation of ethnic tensions” between these areas and the
rest of the country, the promotion of instability, the weakening of the
national leadership,, and “the ‘borderization’ of the places des armes” Moscow
has set up.

Illarionov says he very much hope he is
mistaken but that “one cannot exclude that there will be classic provocations
by the [Russian] special services” in Ukraine designed to facilitate Moscow’s
plans for the next stage of this conflict, one that the Georgian events show,
the Russian state is prepared to pursue over the objections of Ukrainians and
anyone else.